CMS: Obamacare Website File Errors Improving Drastically

The plagued Obamacare website has made marked improvements since its launch Oct. 1, federal heatlh officials report, but 10 percent of the enrollee files generated through the exchange are still containing errors.

That's still a much better rate than was happening on the site between its launch date and Nov. 30, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spokeswoman Julie Bataille said in a conference call Friday, reports The Miami Herald.

Before site upgrades rolled out on Dec. 1, as many as one-quarter of all the site's 834 forms still contained errors, Bataille said in her report from CMS, which oversees the HealthCare.gov website.

The CMS reported Friday that more than 3.7 million consumers visited the website over the past week, reflecting its improved functionality, software repairs, and hardware upgrades.

But there are still significant back-end issues on the site, reported CMS, including failure to generate forms for enrollees, duplicating forms and data errors such as in family relationships, and misspelling names.

The enrollment numbers weren't updated in Friday's update, reports Politico, but around 29,000 enrolled in plans online on Sunday and Monday alone, more than enrolled in all of October.

About 29,000 people enrolled Sunday and Monday alone, Politico has reported — more than the number that enrolled through the site in the entire month of October.

During that month, only one in four who selected a health plan used the federal website, which serves customers in 36 states.

One major source of errors, a bug that caused 80 percent of the problems by failing to transmit Social Security numbers, was repaired over the Thanksgiving weekend, said Bataille.

"Our priority now," she said, "is making sure that we can successfully cross-reference our records with those of the issuers so we can reconcile previous data and, moving forward, our records will match."

Meanwhile, CMS officials say consumers concerned about their coverage status should contact insurers directly to avoid confusion on Jan. 1, the start date for people enrolling in plans by Dec. 23.

The plagued Obamacare website has made marked improvements since its launch Oct. 1, federal heatlh officials report, but 10 percent of the enrollee files generated through the exchange are still containing errors.